Mercykill Week 2017
by SetsunaNoroi
Summary: Yeah, no fancy title here. Just a collection of one-shots for MercyKill Week. Rated T for language and such. Pairing is pretty obvious. Will be seven stories here, one for each day.
1. Beginnings

First fic for mercykill week. Oh man, I've been waiting so eagerly for this. Ideas have been bubbling in my head this whole time for the event and I've been itching to get them written and posted up. The first prompt is Beginnings so I did the first time they met with hopefully a little twist.

Beginnings

It would not be fair to say that Dr. Angela Ziegler disliked Gabriel Reyes the first time she met him. It was closer to the fact he made her uncomfortable, but that was not entirely it either. Honestly, she'd seen enough soldiers in her lifetime that he wasn't intimidating to her but something about him made her wary. It was a feeling in the pit of her stomach when he looked at her, how he watched her, that just told her to be careful.

She had only agreed with the visit from Jack Morrison and Mr. Reyes because refusing point blank would be impolite. After all, her distaste for the military was a moral one and against organizations themselves. It had nothing at all to do with individual soldiers. She'd patched up too many in her career as a doctor, watched too many of them die without anyone but herself to care for them in their last moments, to ever blame the individual for the uncontrollable machine of war.

If there was anyone who wanted a war to end, it was the men and women forced to fight it.

So when she'd received word from her secretary that a couple representatives wished to meet and talk with her, she'd been on the fence. Representatives were always the ones in charge, the ones that made the decisions about where to send soldiers, the one who made the choices but never the risks, stuffy generals or politicians, neither of whom she really liked to talk to all that much. However Overwatch was… well, Overwatch. Their influence spanned the globe and she was not so stubborn to refuse to even speak with them. So she'd agreed to a meeting and decided she would hear what they had to say before asking them to just leave if she didn't like what she had to say.

She was now regretting that choice, deeply.

When she'd been told of the request, she hadn't heard what they wanted. Part of her had hoped they were interested in possibly setting up some kind of relief effort, a rescue attempt for countries in trouble or a charity in humanitarian effort and she was wanted to be a part of it. She probably would have leaped at the opportunity then.

That was not what they had in mind at all.

"So, in closing we think that your new technology would be a fine addition to the roster to the supplies we give our troops on the battlefield," Jack Morrison informed her, smiling as he spoke. She had to admit that he was a fine specimen. Strong, tall and undoubtedly handsome in the boy next store sort of way if the boy had grown up to be the perfect gentleman. Throughout the meeting he had been polite, upfront and hadn't expressed shock at her young age. In fact, he had acted purely professional at all times and had not even addressed the fact.

Considering she often had people assume she was an intern or nurse due to only being a teenager, it was a nice change of pace to not have to correct someone on the matter. True, he probably had seen a file or something on her first… and the though that Overwatch had a file on her made her shudder internally for reasons she tried not to look too closely at, but it was nice anyway.

She might have found him charming under other circumstances. If he'd approached her on the street he probably would be the type to offer to hold a door open for her. He was genuinely a nice person. She could see that from the get go. It was no wonder he was the face of the group. He certainly had the right balance of professionalism and approachability.

Sadly, it wasn't different circumstances and instead she wanted nothing more than to throw him out of her office and never have to talk to him again.

"So, let me get this straight," she said as she slipped her glasses off from her nose and set them down on her desk. It was mostly for reading and while he'd been talking she'd been skimming over the notes of the official proposal that had been brought with him. "You wish to Caduceus System that I have developed and use it, a medical tool, in war."

"We are not in war anymore, Dr. Zieg-"

"And you want me, the one who developed it, to just give up all the rights of production to you?" she continued uninterrupted. He wasn't saying anything worth listening to right now.

"As you can see in the sum we're offering, we are willing to offer you fair compensation," he stated, starting to see this wasn't going the way he wanted.

"Fair compensation. Hm," she hummed as she picked up the paper and glanced at it before throwing it back down to her desk. "So this is a price on a life, then?"

"I don't understand what you mean," he said. "The work we propose with the system is-"

"It is not 'the system', Commander," she said suddenly. "You must forgive me. You see, my English, it is perhaps rusty? Let me try to ask again. Is this the price you would pay for a life? Because that is what you are asking to give to you, my life. This is not some science project I started in college. This was not just a thesis. This is my life, Commander. Short as it might have been so far, this is something I have poured everything I am into. Every late night working on machinery, every night studying and putting myself into a field of medicine hardly even touched, months I went by without sleep to get it created and I am still working on it… and you wish me to give it away to you in exchange for money? To just hand you the patent over on my life's work and let you do whatever you want with it?"

"I can see you aren't keen on the idea," he said. "I won't deny that I'm disappointed."

"I'm sure you are. This meeting is over," she replied, her tone frosty. "Please see yourself out."

"Of course. Sorry for wasting your time. If you reconsider, the offer is an open one," he said before he stood up. "Come on, Reyes."

The man with him, said nothing. He hadn't this entire time. In fact, he had been so silent and stoic that Angela had almost forgotten he was even in the room. He'd just stood by the door, leaning on the wall and had his arms crossed over his chest without a word the entire time. However, when he was addressed, he only smirked in response.

"Go on. I'll catch up," he said in response.

"Reyes," Morrison said, and it almost sounded warning.

"Relax," he said with a shake of his head. "I got this."

For some reason, the statement made her feel a bit flustered. He had this? What? In those three words she felt on her guard and almost angry, and she wasn't even entirely sure why.

"Alright," the strike commander said before he walked out.

In only a few words it sounded like an entire conversation had taken place between them. She didn't like it at all that she didn't entirely understand it. It sounded like this was a conversation that had taken place before, one that made her feel like she should be wary.

"I would like it if you left," she said as she stood up to be on even ground with the man left. Not that it did much. He was rather large, taller than her easily and probably twice her weight. Even under baggy clothing his muscles were well defined.

"I will, but only after we talk," he replied.

"I'm not going to ask you to."

Her eyes widened a little as she gripped her desk, feeling a little on edge and shaky. Not ask? So what, he planned to force the issue? Before she wouldn't have wanted to judge, but this looked like a man who was not above violence. Everyone knew of Gabriel Reyes. He was downright deadly. In the war, she'd heard tales about him, how ferocious he was in combat, a trained killer in every respect.

And she was alone with him with nothing but a desk and a couple of chairs between them.

"Is that a threat?" she asked him, trying to make her tone sound fierce, but his response didn't seem to find it that way. He only looked at her for a moment, blinked at her, before he suddenly burst out laughing.

"A threat? Oh shit. Oh fuck, that's… holy damn, and here I thought you didn't have a sense of humor!" he laughed out, confusing her. She watched him slap his knee over and over again as he lost it, starting to leave behind her irked mood and just feel confused.

"I… what are you laughing about?" she asked him.

"Sorry. Shit, sorry," he said, shaking his head and wiping at his eyes, tears forming from the force of it. "I just didn't expect that. A threat. Damn."

"When you are finished," she stated pointedly.

"Right. No, you're right. Sorry," he apologized again. "I didn't mean to offend you or anything. I wasn't going to ask because I didn't figure it would change anything. This is your work, just like you said. No one can make you give it up."

"Yet you are still here," she noted.

"Yeah, but I'm not going to try to convince you to give us anything," he said with a shrug. "I've got an alternative. I want you instead."

Angela felt her entire face flush at him. There was no mistaking his meaning this time, the way he smiled at her and arched an eyebrow. If she were older, more experienced, she might have just scoffed at his actions and words, as it was, she felt entirely unprepared for the direction this conversation was suddenly going.

"C-Commander Reyes! What are you-"

"In Overwatch, of course," he continued on, as if he had not just flirted with her so blatantly. She wasn't going to fall for it. He'd done that on purpose, just to throw her off! "I'll admit, I think the offer you're being given is pretty shit. Would you believe me if I told you that it wasn't our idea? Everyone answers to someone after all, even us, and we answer to the guys in the UN. They want your tech. They think it's valuable so we were sent here to ask you to give it up. Marching orders, like always.

"Thing is though, I've got a talent for reading people and situations pretty well. I knew the second I walked in here the answer was no. Waste of our time really. Shouldn't have even shown up… except for one thing. I think you have talent, really honest to god talent, and drive. I mean, Angela Ziegler. Your parents dead at eight due to an attack by the Omnics in your home city."

"H-how did you know about that?" she hissed out, but he continued anyway.

"Became a ward of the state immediately after. No other family to claim you, just another orphan. Anyone else would have given up. You though? Let's see, threw yourself into studies. Already a bright student, you started to top every single class you were in. You advanced in grades, secured a scholarship to study medicine by the time you should have been in middle school, tested out of classes there, blew away fellow students who were a whole decade older than you and in your spare time invented a machine that uses nanobots to heal injuries it would take weeks to recover from in mere minutes," he continued. "I miss anything?"

She shivered, feeling very uncomfortable now. Looks like she had been right about the file. Anger would have filled her if she didn't feel suddenly so scared. It was never pleasant when someone knew so much about you. He'd summarized her whole painful and hard life in the matter of moments, reciting it off like statics.

"Look, I'm not trying to fuck with you here," he said, seeming to sense her tension. Not that she was even trying to hide it. "It's a compliment, really. You worked hard to be where you are. It was rude of us to ask you to give it away for any amount of money. I'm not going to ask you to take the deal. Instead I'm asking you to join us, join Overwatch."

"Join Overwatch? Are you insane? You're military organization," she accused. "Why would I do something like that?"

"How many people have you saved in this hospital?" he asked her. "A couple hundred? I wouldn't bet more than a thousand, tops and that's being generous. You're far away from the action, too far. Jack's a nice guy, but he's wrong. The war isn't over, no matter who signed a paper saying it was. Fighting is still happening, people are still getting hurt, and we are still signed up to stop it. Here you are, waiting for the patients to come in, to get to you and pray you have enough time left to stop their deaths. With us, you can do so much more. You'd be right there, right where you need to be, saving people before they even get to the hospital. Bombings, attacks, natural disasters, relief aid. All that could be your job, if you want it. I can make that happen for you."

"You want a medic?" she asked him.

"Something like that. I was thinking more the fact we don't currently have a head doctor, but it would come with the benefit of being out there on the front, if you wanted it. Don't give us the tech, but bring it with you. Let us develop it for you and mass produce it," he offered. "You could get those machines out to people who needed them in months, or you can stay here and continue to handle it on your own and maybe be able to get it ready to sell to a handful of hospitals in a few years."

She paused at his words, feeling like there was a heavy weight on her shoulders. To say he'd given her a lot to think about would be an understatement, but she still didn't like how he'd gotten his point across. His words about her past still crawled over her, like sweat from a hard day's work, making her itch and desire to be rid of it. Frowning, she shook her head.

"I… I need time to think about this," she admitted. His offer, however he had presented it, did sound appealing. She almost hated him for being able to make so much sense while still being so rude.

"I kind of expected that," he said with a nod before he pulled something out of his pocket, a pen and grabbed the paper from her desk, scrawling something out over it. "Here. My number. If you want to talk about it more, just give me a ring. I'll answer any time, and I'm in town for a while anyway. Don't know if you heard, but we'll be building a base nearby."

"I had," she said dryly. It had been all over the news for the last few weeks. Her staff would not stop gossiping about it.

"Good. Then you know where to find me," he said with a smirk. She did her best not to notice how devilishly charming it looked on him. "Take care, doc."

He walked out after that, and she had to take a moment to breathe. That had been… intense. It was the only word she could think to use. Something about him was so confident in a way she could not ignore. It was amazing how he had gone from barely registering in her mind while Morrison had spoken to her to suddenly seeming to take up the whole room with only a few lines.

Groaning a little, she didn't let herself look at the number. She would think about it, she was sure. Weigh the options. Already she knew she'd call him, to discuss details, see exactly what he'd want from her, ask for more information, but for now she needed to just process it.

It would not be fair to say that Dr. Angela Ziegler disliked Gabriel Reyes the first time she met him. It was closer to the fact he made her uncomfortable, but that was not entirely it either. He both scared and intrigued her in ways she didn't really understand.

It was a very dangerous, yet convincing, combination.

End

This has always been my head canon on how these two met officially. I like the idea of him recruiting her, offering her a chance to do more with her work. Maybe it's because of his relationship with Jesse, but the idea of him being able to convince people who would initially be against such an organization that it was their best option with just plain brutal honesty is pretty interesting to me.

It's painfully ironic in hindsight too, his later persona considered.


	2. Fate

Second day in Mercykill week, and thus the second one shot. There's not much to it. I tried to think about things that had affected the fate of the two, and besides the obvious changes of him becoming Reaper and other stuff, nothing really occurred to me so I went with something I didn't think was too obvious.

Warnings though, trigger warnings for past bad experiences, death and mentions of phobias and traces of PTSD.

Fate

If someone where to ask if she still smelled the smoke, she'd say no. If she was asked if the fear still gripped her, she'd deny it. If she was asked if she still saw her mother's face when she closed her eyes, she'd lie and state that memory has long since been blotted out of her mind.

Even as a doctor, Angela is a terrible patient. She could scold people for days about how to take care of themselves while refusing to follow her own advice. She could send someone home for a cold while trying to work at HQ with a high temperature and the flu. It was a stubborn streak in her, she supposed. It wasn't really supposed to be there. She should be better, but… well, she just wasn't.

Going to therapy every week was her secret. It was something she had to force herself to do, to think and let herself cleanse. She didn't speak often and it was nothing expensive or official with a highly trained therapist. Just a group that got together with free, burned coffee and donuts or coffee cake that someone would bring in to share with everyone. Most times, she sat there and just let the others talk about their experiences in the Omnic War, how scared they'd been or how angry they still were. Emotions ran high there most Friday nights, but somehow it helped. She didn't share.

She never, ever shared.

Honestly, she didn't know why. If she were speaking to someone else she'd tell them it would be for the best. Get it off your chest, let yourself talk about it, get it out and it wouldn't be so scary. Her tale wasn't even the worst one there, even as horrible as it had been.

Most people in the apartment building she'd been living during the attack in had died. Only a few had been lucky enough to survive until help had arrived three days later to dig them out. She would have easily been among the dead if it hadn't been for her own mother. It had happened so fast she could have easily convinced someone that she didn't remember it, but in truth it had all seemed so slow to her at the time and it had lasted an eternity. Her mother rushing to her, throwing herself over Angela's small, tiny frame as the roof came down…

And had stayed in that position, dead, for three days while the terrified blonde girl had nowhere else to look.

To this day, Angela still hated being in tight spaces. It didn't terrify her as much as when she was still in school, but she knew she would never be comfortable with it.

For a year she'd been able to keep away from therapy, convince herself she didn't need it anymore. She was too busy anyway, with her hospital and developing the Caducues System, to let herself get bogged down with things like her own mental health. Angela was fine. She could go on without it.

And then Overwatch had happened. Joining had been frantic. Even as a professional, there was only so much injuries and death one could see in a day before it affected you. The nightmares came back, the training Gabriel insisted she go through frayed at her nerves, the pistol at her side that she refused to use always weighed heavy on her hip. She knew if she didn't go back she'd breakdown and she was just too busy to do that.

It had been her little secret, shame in her that she couldn't control herself, that she wasn't strong enough to be able to go on without help. Even though she knew logically getting help was precisely what the responsible thing to do was… she still felt weak for it.

Silently, she finished up her paperwork, same as every Friday night. As always, she begged off going out for drinks with the rest of the medical staff. Most of the nurses were only a few years older than her and seemed determined to make her part of the group, gossiping and joking around, always insisting she come along but taking her, "Maybe next time," answer with smiles and nods. Perhaps someday she would join them, when she felt better.

Her computer clicked off, like always. She signed out, like always. Her footsteps felt heavy, walking to the small clinic a couple miles into town where the group meeting was held, like always.

This time though, something was different. Someone was standing there at the door, leaning against the brick wall without going in. Arms crossed over his chest, like always, he looked a little cold without a coat on. She'd been telling him to get proper wear for the country they were living in for the last two years. He never listened. A hoodie was just fine for him.

A stubborn patient, just like her.

"So, this is where you go every Friday," he said just as she had considered turning around and walking off. Her face burned as she stared hard at him. Conversations with him were like walking a maze. He was brutally honest, didn't bother to put hidden meanings in his words with her, yet somehow she never really knew how to talk to him. It always left her feeling raw and confused.

"When you say it like that, it makes it sound like you have nothing better to do than to figure out my schedule," she noted, shoving her hands into her pockets.

"Have you been following me or something?"

He looked up at the sky before sighing.

"Sorry. It's not like that but if you feel uncomfortable than I can go," he offered. "I didn't realize this was your spot."

"My spot?" she asked him.

"Where you go to… you know, help yourself," he said. "I saw a flyer a couple days ago. I thought I'd… Never mind. It's stupid."

"What is it?" she asked him. "What's wrong?"

He pushed himself off the wall and made to walk off, before her hand shot out and suddenly grabbed his arm. She had nowhere near the strength to keep him from leaving if he really wanted to, though the action seemed enough anyway.

"Did… did you come here to talk?" she asked him.

"The war left a lot of bad memories. Jack gets worried about me, Ana too. I sometimes do things like this to get them off my back," he muttered. "It's not a big deal. I'm not-"

"I come here too," she said, an odd strength in her voice. "There's no shame in asking for help."

He looked down at her hand on his arm before gently taking it off and let it go. Like a lifeless limb, it fell down to her side. Had she pushed a boundary he didn't like?

"It feels stupid. Admitting like you have some weakness," he stated before sighing again. She watched his breathe in the air, mingle out and fizzle in the cold. "Like I should be able to handle this better."

"You are handling it, if you go inside," she whispered. Just like she thought, it was easier to convince someone else to do what was best for them than to convince herself. "You don't have to do anything in there. It's a very relaxed group. We just… we just talk. There's never any pressure."

Gabriel seemed to think it over for a moment, and there was something in his expression she couldn't place. Was it shame? He really hadn't known she came here, had he? Something told her that he wouldn't be here if he'd known he would see a familiar face. Like her, it was too hard to admit to anyone that help was needed for things like this. She'd thought for a moment about running and now it seemed like he wanted to as well.

She didn't want him to have to leave just because he thought she would judge him. She would never, ever judge him for something like this.

Something told her he wouldn't judge her either.

"It would be nice to have someone I know here," she whispered. "For moral support."

"Alright," he said, her silent offer to be there for him too seeming to win out. "Let's go in then."

When it came to her turn in the circle, she squeezed her hands over her knees. Like always, the same word fell from her lips.

"Pass," she whispered before shaking her head. "Actually… I… I think I'd like to share tonight."

End

This was short, but emotionally charged. Again, a head canon on how exactly Angela's past, this time how she lost her parents. As someone who was in the military myself, I know how hard it is to face those kinds of memories, and how much having those nearby who identify with you can help. I'd like to think Gabriel and Angela helped each other through such issues that faced them a lot.


End file.
